With the advent of more robust mobile electronic systems, advancements of handheld communication devices are becoming more prevalent. Handheld communication devices can provide a variety of functions including, for example, telephonic, electronic messaging and other personal information manager (PIM) application functions. Handheld communication devices include mobile stations such as simple cellular telephones, smart telephones, wireless PDAs, wired PDAs, and reduced-sized laptop computers. Each handheld communication device can include a smart card, e.g., a subscriber identity module (SIM) card, removable user identity module (R-UIM) card, universal integrated circuit card (UICC) or any other suitable card. The smart card stores a service-subscriber key (IMSI) which is a unique serial number which can identify a subscriber of the handheld communication device. The smart card can include the IMSI, security authentication and ciphering information, temporary information related to a local network (such as a temporary id for the local network), a list of services that the user has access to and two passwords: a personal identification number (PIN) and pin unlock key (PUK). Conventional smart cards for handheld communication devices come in two sizes: credit card (85.60 mm×53.98 mm×0.76 mm) and miniature size (25 mm×15 mm×0.76 mm) with the miniature size being more popular for handheld communication devices.
In order to exchange, change, or reset a handheld communication device, the smart card is removed. Due to limited spacing, removing a smart card from a handheld communication device can be difficult. For example, some users may use the eraser of a pencil to apply downward pressure and then pressure to move the smart card away from a smart card holder. Removing a smart card using such a technique can damage the smart card, the handheld communication device, or both.